Zionism

The glories of ancient piyyut: אז באין כל

The discovery of a new inscription like that from
Zincirli, of a site like Khirbet Qeiyafa, of missing pages of Hebrew Ben Sira –
all these things cannot fail to create excitement in the minds of students of the
biblical world.But what about the
massive piyyut, one of the most ancient Avodah in our possession, that has come
to light thanks to finds from the Cairo Geniza and the Firkovitch collection
housed in St. Petersburg? The very existence of this composition is unknown to all
but a few specialists. Fragments were published by Zvi Malachi in 1974. Joseph
Yahalom reconstructed and published an annotated version of the composition
from Genizah fragments in 1996. Since then, more fragments have been
discovered. I base myself on the 2005 edition published by Michael D. Swartz
and Joseph Yahalom (bibliography at the end of this post).

An Avodah piyyut like אז באין כל’Az be-’En Kol is of
enormous interest to anyone with a passion for the history of reception of the
Hebrew Bible, the diachronic development of ancient Hebrew poetry, and the
theology and theological anthropology of Judaism in Greco-Roman antiquity. For
the student of ancient Hebrew, furthermore, reading piyyut is an excellent
exercise. Phrase after phrase of piyyut goes back to the biblical corpus. Continuities
and transformations are all worth noting.

אז באין כל’Az be-’En Kol, furthermore, is a stunning witness to a religious synthesis
in which biblical, “apocryphal,” and rabbinic elements congeal to form a
portrait of a loving, merciful God. The God of the piyyut is the Creator of the
cosmos and elector of a people and a priesthood. The world and the cult are understood
as a theatre of glory, holiness, and divine lovingkindness.

Below the fold, I provide and translate strophe by strophe
the letter אof the opening acrostic of the composition.
My translation differs in details from that offered by Swartz and Yahalom. I
cite their translation as well, for comparison’s sake, when the differences are
particularly salient. I would love to have some back-and-forth with the authors
on-line about problems of interpretation, but that is a tall order. I sincerely
hope that fellow Hebraists will challenge my interpretation if such seems
necessary. For pedagogical reasons, I quote the Hebrew without vowels to begin
with. If you are able to read the piyyut correctly without vowels, it is a sign
that you are proficient in Hebrew. If not, you might consider mastering Hebrew
at a higher level. In the end, you will be glad if you do.

אז באין כל

אתה כל הייתה

ובהכינך כל

אתה כל נמלאתה

(1) When there was nothing at all,

you were all that was,

and when you established
all,

you filled all.

אָז בְּאֵין כֹּל

אַתָּה כֹּל הָיִיתָה

וּבַהֲכִינָךְ כֹּל

אַתָּה כֹּל נִמְלֵאתָה

Note: סוּסָךְ instead of סוּסְךָis, so far as I have
noted, the only significant variation from Masoretic Hebrew convention in terms
of vocalization of the piyyut as presented in Swartz and Yahalom

[אז בברא]ך כל

אתה חדש לחדשו

כי ישושיך בראשית

ובחורותיך באחרית

(2) [When] you [created] all

you possessed newness so
as to renew it,

for your senescence was in
the beginning

and your youthfulness in the ending.

S & Y: line 2: you
are ever renewing,

[אָז בְּבָרְאָ]ךְ כֹּל

אַתָּה חָדָׂש לְחַדְּשׁוֹ

כִּי יְשׁוּשֶׁיךָ בְּרֵאשִׁית

וּבְחוּרוֹתֶיךָ בְּאַחֲרִית

אין עין לשור

אוי חנייתך

כי על אדירים

אז מקדם חניתה

(3) No eye can spy

the comforts of your
tabernacle,

for above the Majesties

you tabernacled
from of old.

אֵין עַיִן לָשׁוּר

אַוֵּי חֲנִייָּתֶךָ

כִּי עַל אַדִּירִים

אָז מִקֶּדֶם חָנִיתָה

S&Y vocalizeאִוֻּיand חֲנִיָּיתֶךָ. Note pausal form. אדירים=המים

או איזה שכוי

יחקור מקום שכנך

ואש אוכלה אש

בלבת מים החתיתה

(4) Or what of the
rooster?

He might search for your
dwelling place,

but fire devouring fire

you put down in the flaming
waters.

S&Y: line 1: Or
perhaps some rooster; lines 3-4: you have snatched up a fire consuming
fire from the fiery waters.

אוֹ אֵיזֶה שֶׂכְוִי

יַחְקוֹר מָקוֹם שִׁכְנֶךָ

וְאֵשׁ אוֹכְלָה אֵשׁ

בְּלַבַּת מַיִם הֶחְתֵּיתָה

לבת=להבת; החתה=הנחית

So the piyyut begins. Its protology is a mirror
image of God filling the Temple and his glory overflowing from there to fill the
entire earth (cf. Isaiah 6).

The first strophe confesses two things: (1) Prior to any
thing existing there was nothing besides God. The tautological statement expresses
God’s absolute priority. (2) God filled all from the moment of creation. The first
thought recalls the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. The second is
reminiscent of the Christian confession according to which the exceeding
greatness of divine power is found in “him (the Christ) who fills all in all” (Ephesians
1:23). In the piyyut, it is God who fills all in all, not the Messiah.

The second strophe affirms that God is old and young
simultaneously, always new in himself, and always renewing. The inaccessibility
of God is stressed in the third strophe. The Majesties are probably the waters
mentioned in Genesis 1. The waters are reported to be laced with fire in the
fourth strophe. The source of this tradition is unknown to me.

With respect to ancient Hebrew, שור consistently replaces ראה in the piyyut. חנייה appears to be a substitute for משכן / אהל.אדיריםis an example of a
circumlocution used in place of a simple noun (probably המים ‘the waters’ above
and below the heavens according to Gen 1:7). Poetic substitutions abound in
piyyut.

Comments

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This is a beautiful poem--both in terms of imagery and in terms of sonority.

I found the second stanza particularly stunning. I thought your English rendering of the second line of that stanza ("you possessed newness so as to renew it") rather awkward, however, compared to the succinctness of the Hebrew. I do not have a better translation off the top of my head, but am sure there must be a better way.

I would have thought that the author was using שכוי to mean "mind" rather than "rooster" in the fourth strophe. I know that the Talmud understands it as "rooster" in Job 38:36, but "mind" is also found in the medieval commentaries and the Targum, and IMHO it makes a more natural parallelism between אֵין עַיִן in the third strophe and אֵיזֶה שֶׁכְוִי in the fourth.

Yahalom believes that this work, which is mentioned in ancient liturgical sources, influenced Yose ben Yose's Azkir Gevurot. In that case, it would be relatively early, perhaps third cent. CE.

Your suggested interpretation of שכוי is certainly worth considering. However, I understand the last two lines of the strophe as an explanation of why the שכוי cannot search out God's dwelling place: the way is barred by fiery water. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I find it hard to see how that would stop the mind if indeed it could, against the tenor of Job 28, transport itself into God's abode.

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